The Simpsons

This assignment is difficult to do because it's impossible for me to pick a favorite. There are so many good ones: "Treehouse of Horror V", "Homer the Great", "The Springfield Files", "El Viaje de Nuestro Jomer", etc.

I pretty much picked at random and I decided on The Twisted World of Marge Simpson. The plot is that Marge starts a pretzel business to feel like she's accomplished something, but she fails. So, Homer asks mobster Fat Tony to help her out and naturally there are bad consequences.

There so many great moments in this episode. There's a montage where the mob illegally promotes Marge's business: they force girl scouts out of town at gunpoint and when Prinicipal Skinner orders pretzels from her, he has a broken wrist and laser pointer aimed at his head. There's also this quote, where Marge talks to the pretzel franchise owner:

Marge: What's my territory?
Frank Ormand: Your territory? Well, let me put it this way: wherever a young mother is ignorant as to what to feed her baby, you'll be there. Wherever nacho penetration is less than total, you'll be there! Wherever a Bavarian is not quite full, you'll be there!
Marge: Don't forget fat people! They can't stop eating!
Homer: (passing by) Hey! Pretzels!

There's not a whole lot of irony or satire to speak of. I would say that Fat Tony's gang satirizes what we usually see in mafia movies. Whereas Michael Corleone is always assassinating his enemies in The Godfather, Fat Tony smashes pizzas and he's tricked by Homer of all people when asking for money. He also posts ads for his services in the church newsletter. According to Wikipedia there are parodies of the movies Goodfellas and Glengarry Glen Ross.

Anyway, this episode is a perfect example of classic Simpsons writing before they jumped the shark. Check it out.